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Buy British?

The Anna Raccoon Archives

by Anna Raccoon on March 6, 2012

Patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel or the Miliband. Or as that old trade union firebrand Clive Jenkins once put it, “when the British ruling class is in trouble it wraps itself in the Union Jack”.

The trade unions were the death of the last ‘Back Britain’ campaign, they flew into a hissy fit when a series of patriotic Britons decided to work an extra half hour every week for no pay in an attempt to help Britain out of the doldrums. The campaign faltered to a stop when it was discovered that the ‘Back Britain’ patriotic t-shirts which had been selling like hot cakes, were actually made and printed in Portugal, on account of them being a fraction of the price of British ones.

Thereby lies Miliband’s problem. Very few of his voters can afford to ‘Buy British’. His union backers have forced up the prices of everything from food to clothing – Sofa King is full of Polish sofas, Tesco’s fills their shelves with Chinese apples, Argos will sell you a Taiwanese washing machine – Britain no longer makes or grows the staples of life for the average Labour voter.

We do well on things like financial services, the aerospace industry, and the pharmaceutical industry – but there is no opportunity there for the voter to get out and support Britain.

The first ‘Buy British’ campaign back in 1931 had more success, the man in the street answered the call of the Empire Marketing Board and bought his linens from Lancashire, his shoes from Northamptonshire, his Bacon from Wiltshire, his apples from Kent.

Now Ed wants a ‘Made in Britain’ stamp on everything which is, er, ‘Made in Britain’ – like what Ed?

“There are three words we don’t hear enough, or see enough. Those three words are ‘Made in Britain’.

Seroxat, the cure all for depression is still made in Britain, give it a ‘Made in Britain’ stamp (do check the stamping equipment wasn’t made in Korea, won’t you?) and the voters just might find a way to answer your call to ‘Buy British’.

Because there are two words we hear far too often. ‘Ed’ and ‘Miliband’.

Whoops! Hit Publish too soon. I quite forgot to add a reference to the ‘Buy Irish’ case (1982). When the Irish tried to instigate a ‘Buy Irish’ campaign – the European Union, our totalitarian masters that Ed so admires, promptly ruled that the campaign constituted a measure having equivalent effect to a quota in breach of Art. 28.

Even though the campaign was aimed at increasing the consumption of domestic products, and not restricting imports. Since, it was reasoned, there was only a market of a particular size for a particular product, encouraging consumption of domestic products would have the practical effect of restricting importation.

Nissan cars? JCB diggers? The trade unions weren’t all the problem: the British car industry suffered from management who managed to combine the worst parts of 19th Century micro-management with an abdication of responsibility on the shopfloor to shop stewards. In short, in the main behaved like the very worst type of officers in the last war. If you treat people like children don’t be surprised when they act like them. As for the aircraft industry, there were too many manufacturers and engine makers in the Golden Age chasing too small a domestic market. Although Britain no longer makes complete aircraft (with the exception of Agusta Westland) Rolls Royce is a world leader and British made components and sub-assemblies are found in most Western aircraft.

Manufacturing jobs have (quite rightly) gone the same was as agricultural jobs as process improvements mean that the same result can be achieved for less cost. This is, despite the wailing one hears from MPs and Unions, a good thing.

Purchasing according toComparative Advantage helps the economy grow and gives people a better standard of living. The money saved by buying cheaper imports can be invested in improving the productivity of British industries that we have a comparative advantage in.

Well if you want to, and if you push the terms of “Made in Britain” to the limit you could say that just about every smartphone in the world, including Apple iPads are made in Britain. Why? Because it uses the ARM microprocessor. The ARM computer chip is actually made all over the world, but it is a British company that designs it is and licenses it to all the other companies to actually make their version.

When Caedmon goes shopping around the Streonaeshalch market, he always looks for the ‘Made In Northumbria’ stamp or label. He’s discovered that our fluffy diversity coordinators, pigeon psychologists, climate advisors, cat license administrators and fish quota accountants are the best you can get. Fly the flag, people! You know it makes sense.

Even at rock bottom prices (sorry!) for British-made goods, these cost at least twice as much as their foreign-made chain-store rivals. The fashionistas may call them affordable – and so they are, by comparison with brand-name lingerie – but the general public will surely have other ideas.

It’s a bit like opening a patisserie on the eve of the French Revolution to offer work to the starving sans-culottes…

The answer to EUSSR threats is to change the slogan to “Buy Local” – nothing they can do about that, it’s not advocating any individual EU member state over another.

In fact, it makes even more sense than Buy British – the nearer to home a product originates, the nearer to home the benefit of that trade is spent again, creating the multiplier effect on a local scale.

In Bristol they (whoever they are) are trying to launch ‘The Bristol Pound’ to be spent locally to help boost local businesses. Don’t ask me how this could work in practice, I have read the leaflet and am none the wiser. No doubt it will be ‘funded’ and run at a loss at all of our expense. Genius!

Er – I thought the New Labour approach was the ‘Service Economy’ – we are now a post-industrial nation. We don’t do manufacturing any more. We don’t need engineers, fitters, welders or draughtspersons. Oh, no – financial services will save the world….

Actually, I’d welcome Miliband’s conversion to common sense if I didn’t think it was anything other than cynical political opportunism.

As people who have the time to do it we go to a lot of trouble to try to buy our basics locally or from Britain. It has become increasingly difficult over a range of goods and additionally sometimes more expensive, although you do have to pay more for quality. It really does require a lot more effort and thought than just going to the big supermarket only half a mile away.

When I met my ex wife she asked me why I wasn’t riding an English motor bike. Told her I didn’t want to have to park it over a catlitter tray to absorb the oil leaks. Love the idea of “Buy Local” though. Except here in Holland I’d have to buy Philips. Not too sure about that.

The rot set in during the war when Labour was in charge of – well – labour. There were even strikes in aircraft factories during the battle of Britain but the government would not apply the defence regulations to strikers. The Conservatives (especially Churchill) continued this policy of appeasment post war and did not repeal the Trade Disputes Act 1906 until Maggie came along. That was the law that gave almost total legal immunity to trade unions and shop stewards to strike at whim and “in sympathy” with other disputes, even when no cause existed in the firm where the strike took place.

If Maggie had come along 20 years earlier, there might have been plenty of manufacturers capable of being turned round and nationalised industries which could have been brought into profitable operation.

To quote from Strikes During Wartime: “Defence Regulation 58AA introduced on 10 July 1940 allowed the Minister of Labour to ban strikes and lockouts, and force compulsory arbitration. Order 1305 then allowed the Minister to refer any dispute to existing arbitration structures or the National Arbitration Tribunal – either alternative was to be binding. But as the Chief Industrial Commissioner recognised “The Order has a substantial deterrent effect but it is an instrument which would probably be shown to be useless if any considerable body of workpeople chose to defy it.”

Perhaps a British version of the NKVD or Gestapo could have arrested and executed or gaoled for long sentences the ringleaders, but wouldn’t that have defeated the whole point of the war, ie not treating ordinary people like drones ? The truth was that people wanted to beat Hitler and their resolution especially during the Blitz proved this. Pre-War assumptions based on the Douhet Doctrine were that the TA would be needed to maintain order and quell panic. However, Churchill wanted things to stay the same after the war whereas most people wanted an improvement in their rights and standard of living as a recognition of their sacrifices. It was what Britain as a democratic country was fighting for. Actually, the key provisions of the Trade Disputes Act 1906 were repealed by theTrade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 which itself was repealed by the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1946.

Anyone who is currently being prescribed Seroxat is strongly advised by me to see their health care professional to have their head examined. An evil drug, that one, with more side effects than absinthe and a whole lot less fun. Other, less toxic, mood meds are available.

Once you understand that Messrs Jones, Scanlon et al + Wilson the Prime Minister were all KGB agents with Edward Heath a Nazi sympathiser you should then begin to get a picture of what was behind the sixties and seventies treasonous industrial sabotage of our once great manufacturing power base.

All assisted of course deliberately by bankster controlled boom & bust inflation and high interest rates (usury at its worst).